Every time we want to change society to benefit average people, we have to deal with ultrawealthy crybabies. We’re held hostage by those who already have it all. It doesn’t have to be like this.
According to “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow, if one were in the Americas, it could have been pretty okay. Depending on the tribe, a selfish person could have been exiled and many people’s competed to be generous.
Rousseau and the European Enlightenment struggling against the weight of the Catholic Church, may have presented an overly negative view on life long ago. (Source is also “The Dawn of Everything”.)
No written records, but “we” have found bones and pottery.
But yes, it is all extremely unclear and one should not draw many conclusions or generalities from those.
How am I romanticizing the stone ages? By pointing out that members of the tribe who acted selfishly were often executed (and sometimes tortured)? Is that idea a romantic one, in your mind?
Selfishness wasn’t so harshly punished back then because stone age people were noble savages, who were just more righteous than we are today. No, selfishness was so harshly and violently punished (even if the sentence was banishment, that was often a death sentence) because selfish people were a threat to the survival of the tribe, and thus a threat to the survival of every member of the tribe.
7000 years ago 95% of the male population died off. Based on our discovery of mass graves showing violent deaths from this time, the most likely explanation is that there was a globe spanning slaughter of people - prehistoric people were people too, they had the same flaws that we do now
the most likely explanation is that there was a globe spanning slaughter of people
Last I read, they think it was due to waring between patrilineal tribes. I never argued that there wasn’t waring between tribes, only that too much selfishness and greed was not tolerated within the tribe.
prehistoric people were people too, they had the same flaws that we do now
Where did I say otherwise? I would like to point out that wars and mass slaughter did not stop with either the agricultural or industrial revolutions. I am not necessarily offering a solution to war and violence, I am simply pointing out that we evolved to live in tribes. We are tribal, and highly social by our nature. Capitalism is a very antisocial, individualist system. It rewards greed and selfishness and leads to inequality, which breaks down social cohesion. For that, and many other reasons, I think it is unsustainable.
The most likely explanation for why 95% of the male population died around 5000BC is because of a mass breakout of war, people forget that prehistory had the same humans that we have today
I think you have a pretty romanticized idea about how society was run 20.000 years ago
According to “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow, if one were in the Americas, it could have been pretty okay. Depending on the tribe, a selfish person could have been exiled and many people’s competed to be generous.
Rousseau and the European Enlightenment struggling against the weight of the Catholic Church, may have presented an overly negative view on life long ago. (Source is also “The Dawn of Everything”.)
Anyone talking about society 20,000 years ago is bullshitting. We have no records for how these societies operated anything but a superficial level.
This is Jordan Peterson and Evelutionary Psychology levels of scientific rigor.
No written records, but “we” have found bones and pottery.
But yes, it is all extremely unclear and one should not draw many conclusions or generalities from those.
Great book that everyone should read!
How am I romanticizing the stone ages? By pointing out that members of the tribe who acted selfishly were often executed (and sometimes tortured)? Is that idea a romantic one, in your mind?
Selfishness wasn’t so harshly punished back then because stone age people were noble savages, who were just more righteous than we are today. No, selfishness was so harshly and violently punished (even if the sentence was banishment, that was often a death sentence) because selfish people were a threat to the survival of the tribe, and thus a threat to the survival of every member of the tribe.
7000 years ago 95% of the male population died off. Based on our discovery of mass graves showing violent deaths from this time, the most likely explanation is that there was a globe spanning slaughter of people - prehistoric people were people too, they had the same flaws that we do now
Last I read, they think it was due to waring between patrilineal tribes. I never argued that there wasn’t waring between tribes, only that too much selfishness and greed was not tolerated within the tribe.
Where did I say otherwise? I would like to point out that wars and mass slaughter did not stop with either the agricultural or industrial revolutions. I am not necessarily offering a solution to war and violence, I am simply pointing out that we evolved to live in tribes. We are tribal, and highly social by our nature. Capitalism is a very antisocial, individualist system. It rewards greed and selfishness and leads to inequality, which breaks down social cohesion. For that, and many other reasons, I think it is unsustainable.
Well for starters, the suggestion that everyone was part of the same tribe. If tribes had differences with eachother, how do you think that played out
The most likely explanation for why 95% of the male population died around 5000BC is because of a mass breakout of war, people forget that prehistory had the same humans that we have today
Also we still have something like 2-4% psychopaths in out gene pools. So they at least lived long enough to reproduce.
I wonder what and when the historical low % of them was.